It is safe to say Durango residents know who Mark Anderson is, or at least know him by his commonly used alias “Happy Pappy.”
The face of the family-owned Happy Pappy’s Pizza n Wings is hard to ignore, whether it’s his truck leading the charge during the Durango High School homecoming parade, his social media advertising campaigns, serving pizza to elementary and middle school students or providing entertainment during halftime at DHS football games.
But through it all, he’s built a successful business on Main Avenue, and now he’s taking his family brand national with intentions to open stores in Denver, as well as Florida.
He expects to open 50 stores over the next five years.
Originally from Georgia, Anderson has business connections in the southeast, but he also made the decision because much of his family lives in Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
He intends to license the Durango location out to a different owner who will keep the same branding and name. Before hitting the southeast United States, he also intends to build a Denver location.
“All my kids are here except for one. She's been in Florida the past five years and you know, we only see once a year right now, so this is a good switch for us,” Anderson said.
He decided that his original manager for the Durango location, Kenna Flower, would take over the Denver location. Anderson intends to start building the Denver location before the end of the year and then start building his New Smyrna Beach, Florida, location in May 2024.
For Anderson, Happy Pappy’s Durango roots are important to him.
He considers Durango home and says owning a business in the city has a vibe that’s comparable to the 1980s sitcom “Cheers.” He intends to continue to grow his roots in Durango through donating to nonprofits and creating trade school scholarships for DHS students.
It will be a $1,000 scholarship and a new scholarship will be offered each time Carpenter opens a new store for students in the area.
Anderson also says that the expansion will allow him to contribute more to area nonprofits and schools, to which he’s already contributed more than $50,000.
Anderson’s goal is to be one of the largest donors to nonprofits and scholarships in the county over the next 10 years.
“The scholarship program is huge, I think it shows our intent to stay in the fabric of the community,” he said.
Anderson is searching for the right candidate to take over the Durango location. He said he would prefer the candidate be someone who isn’t afraid to work long hours and is committed to the community. Also, he would like to find someone who has lived in Durango for a few years.
“I’m looking for a pappy personality, somebody that can go out and talk to the schools, talk to nonprofits, do things in the community, be able to be exciting and make it a fun place,” he said.
His ideal situation would be to find a licensee by the end of 2023. He said the business continues to break sales records and has found a strong following in North Durango.
He said the store brought in twice the revenue he thought it would when it first opened in 2020.
“I kind of stopped saying it’s a record because it gets old after a while,” Anderson said. “But it’s like every month we’ve had a record. Last month, we brought in our highest revenue since we’ve opened.”
For Anderson, the move is bittersweet because of how close he has become with Durango, but he ensures that he is not leaving permanently. He jokes that one day his memorial celebration will be held in Durango because of the relationships he’s built here.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
